


Two Sides Of A Coin

by lesbianoodle



Series: Drabbles for Davekatweek (2) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Day One, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, davekatweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianoodle/pseuds/lesbianoodle
Summary: Karkat lists the ten reasons why living with his human boyfriend sucks (and there's fluff). Day One: Post-CanonEDIT: whoops submits this to the collection





	

1\. That fucker doesn't bother cleaning up after himself. Karkat grew up in a hive that he always made sure was impeccably kept for two reasons: 

Firstly, Crabdad seemed to like the hive a lot more when it was tidy. Whenever there was something as small as a sock out of place, Crabdad would normally screech for hours on end until it was put away in the correct place. How many sweeps had Karkat spent searching the hive frantically for whatever was causing his lusus to screech? He would spend hours searching only to find a book that had fallen down the back of a couch to be the source of the problem- he wouldn't even be sure how his lusus had even spotted it in the first place. 

And how many headaches had he gotten from that combination of screeching and frantic clicking of claws? The noise was enough to fry anybody's think-pan until he had a pain in his head that was almost enough to rival Captor's migraines. But unlike Captor, he didn't have a creepy but kind matesprit to ease the pain for him. It was just easier to keep Crabdad happy and that meant keeping the hive in shape. 

Secondly, Karkat had found that he found it easier to function in a tidy environment. When the room was messy, it quickly became chaotic, and that made it so much more difficult for him to function. He would become stressed, then he would become agitated, and next thing he knew, he was screaming at nobody about the hell he lived in. And now that Dave keeps leaving his crap lying around the place, he finds himself getting incredibly irritated at him. And the irritation only builds until it explodes out of him like a pure word vomit of rage. 

He doesn't know why Dave can't just pick up his shit instead of leaving it on the floor so that Karkat trips over it whenever he gets up to use the ablutions block during the night. More often than not, Karkat just kicks his crap out of the way. And Dave always promises that he's going to clean up, he's going to do it in five minutes, but he never does. It's enough to drive a troll insane. 

2\. Dave cooks the weirdest food. And it's not even the weirdest just because it's human food that Karkat wasn't raised on- Rose had cooked for him before at a dinner party and her food, while odd, was perfectly acceptable. But Dave just seems to throw whatever food they have together and makes the weirdest creations for them to have for dinner. 

Some examples of food Dave has cooked over the last week alone:

\- A pizza with peanut butter instead of sauce, sardines, and slices of apple.

\- Fries covered with onions, cheese, relish, chocolate sauce, and cherries. 

\- A pie filled entirely with sprinkles and nothing else. 

\- Sandwiches with oreos, marshmallows, wasabi, and noodles inside. 

Dave claims it's because he had to cook for himself when he was a kid and his Bro didn't keep any recipe books around the house, so Dave just kind of did his own thing. When Karkat asked why he didn't use his husktop to find some recipes, Dave said that he was talking before he was old enough to know what the internet even was. When Karkat found out that Dave was all but abandoned when he was barely more than a wriggler, he was admittedly more sympathetic. This lead to a long conversation about Dave's emotional issues and eventually, the subject of food was left behind entirely. 

Karkat found out a lot more about Dave that he'd never been outright told- most of it was the kind of shit that he could guess but he'd never known how hard it was for Dave to grow up with his "Bro". Bro seemed to enjoy manipulating and toying with Dave's emotion, making his life as difficult and terrifying as possible. Dave talked about being left for hours at a time, his Bro leaving for weeks and suddenly coming back out of nowhere. About how pissed his Bro seemed when they strifed on the roof. How stressed he had always felt about not being good enough or cool enough and how pathetic he felt. Dave talked about hiding food in his room and barricading the door whenever he could and being scared just to go out into the hallway. 

He talked about the fact that he didn't think Bro loved him and how, when he was younger, he was sure that nobody ever would love him. And then, Dave cried. 

Pressing his forehead against Dave's and telling him that he loved him, Karkat found that he didn't care so much about the food issue anymore. It didn't seem to matter in comparison to all the shit he'd been told about his boyfriend's past. But he's still asking Jane to teach his boyfriend more about cooking. He's not sure he can stomach any more anchovy-and-chocolate pop tarts.

3\. Dave takes far too long in the bathroom. And by far too long, Karkat really means far, far, far too much time. The amount of effort that Dave puts into looking as good as he does is really something to be admired but that doesn't mean he has the right to spend about four hours in the bathroom every single morning. When Karkat wakes up and hears the shower on, he knows that he's in for a long wait. Because Dave's showers take at least an hour and that's only the beginning of his morning routine. 

One time Karkat forced his way in because he figured he could at least take a piss and brush his teeth while Dave showered- he wouldn't be bothering him so it wasn't a big deal, even if it was kind of an invasion of privacy- and Dave almost screamed at him to get out. That was the day that Rose came over and tried to explain to Karkat how the human concept of gender worked and how some people didn't have the "correct" body parts for their gender. Karkat didn't entirely understand what she was talking about but the point of the lecture was clear: Dave was to be left alone while he was in the bathroom. 

The rest of that day, Dave seemed upset so Karkat had walked up behind him and wrapped his arms tightly around him. He pressed his face into the soft cotton of Dave's shirt and swore he would never walk in on him like that ever again. Dave ruffled his hair in the way Karkat secretly likes and apologised for yelling at him. They hugged it out. 

Since then, Karkat has learnt to be patient about waiting for his turn in the bathroom. He normally makes himself breakfast and watches TV while he waits for his boyfriend to be finished in there, glancing at the door now and then. Sometimes, if he knocks on the door and "asks nicely", Dave will let him come in and brush his teeth while he's styling his hair. Watching Dave comb product into his hair is oddly hypnotising to watch and more often than not, Karkat finds himself staring more at him than brushing his teeth. 

4\. He's always taking pictures. Dave is almost constantly taking photos, normally with his handheld communication device but sometimes with what looks like a professional camera from the movies Karkat watches. He takes a lot of photos of himself and of the plants that grow outside the house and of the sky and of everyday things around the house. But more than anything, he takes pictures of Karkat. Nearly every day, Dave calls his name softly and Karkat looks up to find a camera being pointed at him. 

He hates it. Karkat hates having his photo taken and he always has and he always will. He's never liked the way he looks, not since he was five or six sweeps, and having pictures taken of him just makes him hate the way he looks even more than usual. Dave might take impeccable pictures but it doesn't change the way that Karkat's skin is always flushed slightly red now that he's matured and his ears stick out out of his messy hair and the way that he's much shorter and chubbier than Dave. His eyes are red like Dave's but much darker and much uglier. He supposed having such a beautiful boyfriend doesn't do anything good for his self-esteem. 

Dave frequently tells him "You're beautiful" but Karkat refuses to believe it. He just tells Dave not to patronise him and that he doesn't want his pity. The first big fight they ever had post-game, as a couple, started like this. It was because Karkat said for the millionth time that he hated the photos of him that Dave stuck up on the refrigerator and how ugly he looked in them and how his face didn't look quite right in any of them. And Dave had said that he was the most beautiful person on this planet. It ended with Karkat ripping up every single photo of him and Dave yelling that he was being an idiot. 

And after the anger subsided, both of them were in tears.

They made up before Karkat reluctantly admitted a few things he liked about himself at Dave's request and promised to stop telling himself that he was ugly. 

5\. Dave is tall. Maybe he isn't freakish Gamzee-tall but Dave is definitely taller than Karkat is and that's extremely annoying to him. It means that Dave can tease him by holding his favourite movie just out of his reach so that Karkat has to stand on the couch in order to reach it. It also means that he constantly has to ask Dave to help him get things down from the highest shelf in their kitchen because he can't reach without climbing onto the counter. And Dave teases him about his height a lot. 

Dave asks him about how his six other dwarf friends are doing. 

Karkat replies by asking how the weather is up there. 

He's not even that short, there's only a few inches between them, but those few inches seem to make all the difference. Whenever they go outside and adventure out into the wilderness of the new world that hasn't been explored yet, Karkat's legs always gets tired long before Dave's and he has to climb on his boyfriend's back and force him to carry him around. Dave finds it easy to pick him up because he's taller and stronger and he does so constantly. He finds it funny when Karkat yells at him about how short people deserve to be treated equally and compares him to Kankri. That shuts Karkat up quickly. 

Whenever he wants to kiss him, Karkat has to tell Dave first because he can barely make their lips meet even if he stands on the tips of his toes. Dave has to lean down a little so that he can reach and he always gets this stupid grin on his face when he does it, like Karkat being short is endearing or some bullshit like that. The only time that Karkat can surprise him with a kiss is when Dave is sitting down. If they're both standing, Karkat can barely slip his arms around Dave's neck either, so he always has to hug him around his waist instead. 

Sometimes, Dave picks him up and sits him on the kitchen counter so that they can be about level with each other and kiss easily. Karkat always protests about this but privately considers it to be pretty cute of Dave. At least it distracts him from cooking his shitty food for a while. 

6\. He sleeps where he pails. Upon further investigation, Karkat actually found out that this was the case with the majority of humans but when he first found out, he was understandably horrified. Coming from a culture where pailing with somebody and sharing a hive with somebody were two almost unrelated things, he was stunned when Dave even offered to share a "house" with him (just him and nobody else) in the first place. And when Dave, who he had been sharing a "bed" with for a solid couple of human months, asked if they could pail on the "bed" too, Karkat was confused and disgusted. 

Pailing for the first time had been awkward enough as it was with lots of awkward groping and eye-contact and both of them trying their hardest not to laugh. Dave told Karkat afterwards that most people didn't look at each other while they did it; Karkat pretended he had already known this. Dave had kept his shirt on the entire time and Karkat hadn't said a word about it, having gathered a little more knowledge about how the human genders worked since the bathroom incident. While they were lying there, Dave drifted to sleep and Karkat had to smack him on the arm until he woke up again, horrified he'd fall asleep here. 

Karkat asked him where they were going to sleep now if they were using the bed for pailing instead of sleeping. Blankly, Dave had looked at him and said that they were going to use it for both obviously. That was when Karkat might have lost his shit a little and frantically scrambled off the bed and backed away from it. And Dave had to sit down with him on the couch and explain in his usual roundabout casual way how humans used beds for both things. This was the second time he'd explained this but Karkat couldn't grasp the concept. 

Eventually, he just came around to the idea that this was a thing they did now. They slept and pailed in the same place like a pair of humans. Quietly, Kanaya had confided with a green blush spread across her face that her and Rose did the same. He had been so embarrassed about telling her that she'd had to pap him for a good hour afterwards and stroke his hair gently until he calmed down again.

Karkat always changes the bedsheets between pailing and sleeping. 

7\. Dave has a previously unknown fear of spiders. 

Honestly, after all the things in the game, Dave should be able to go up against just about anything. He's fought far worse than a couple of small arachnids. But still, even now, he yells every single time that he sees a spider and climbs up onto the nearest piece of furniture. More than once, Karkat has come into the front room to find Dave standing on the couch and pointing frantically at where the small creature is scuttling across the wall. If it's a giant ass spider, Dave will require pale cuddles afterwards. 

Whenever there is a spider, Karkat has to deal with it. He didn't used to like dealing with them because the creatures didn't terrify him in the slightest but they certainly made him uncomfortable and reminded him of the Serkets. Rose taught him how to use a cup to trap the creature and how to slip some card underneath so that he could take it outside and release it into the wild. Prior to that, Karkat was just smacking it with a newspaper while Dave demanded to know if it was dead yet. Dave can only relax once the spider is dead or removed.

There are some spiders too bad for even Karkat. 

A few weeks ago, there was one that he compared to the size of his fist and when he saw it crawling up the wall, his bloodpusher beat so fast it nearly killed him. He took one look at Dave, told him not to move, and ran to Rose for help. She didn't live the nearest but he knew she would deal with the spider easily. Rose Lalonde has no qualms with spiders, she's the kind of girl that seems like she would keep them as pets, and she took care of it easily. She scooped it up into her hands and showed them both it, while Dave hid behind Karkat and Karkat yelled for her to get it the fuck away. Neither of them spoke to Rose for a week after that. 

She told everybody that story along with her psychoanalysis of Karkat and Dave's behaviour. 

8\. They can't stick to a quadrant. They've been pitch, they've been flushed, they've been pale. Dave says that human relationships can contain elements of all three because they don't base their relationships entirely off the kind of pity you feel for somebody. And it's hard for Karkat to process after all those years he spent watching rom-coms about people who's switching quadrants causes all kinds of problems to accept the fact that he can be in all three at once. But Dave is patient with him. Dave knows to back off if they move too fast, if they swing between quadrants too fast, and Karkat loves that about him. 

Most days, they will be flushed and Dave will constantly sling his arm around Karkat's shoulders so that he can pull him closer, nuzzling against him. And Karkat will lie across his lap so that Dave can play with his hair while they watch a movie. And Dave will say something stupid and Karkat will laugh and lean back so that he can kiss him. When they go outside, Dave will sacrifice his jacket so that Karkat can wear it and the fucking thing smells just like Dave. Karkat wears Dave's soft shirts to bed and sleep with his head pressed to Dave's chest so that he can listen to his human heart beating. The sound helps him sleep. If he still can't sleep, Dave will wrap his arms around him and play one of his gentler mixtapes for him. 

Karkat often ends up being softer than those human marshmallows Dave likes, spiky exterior crumbling away, and Dave stops pretending to be cooler than he is. And they're content like that.

Some days, they are pale and Dave admits that he's not as brave or cool as he wishes he was and Karkat holds his hand and assures him that he's just great. He might not be the coolest but he's definitely the bravest in Karkat's eyes. They'll pull a blanket around the two of them or sometimes build a fort of them, sitting so close together that Dave's toes tickle his own. Dave lets his guard down enough to be vulnerable and Karkat pities the fuck out of him, squeezing his hand tightly and hugging him from behind. Karkat likes to lean against him when they stand together and close his eyes to shut everything else out, just for a moment. 

When they are pale, Karkat will talk about how shitty he was as a leader and how he blames everybody dying on himself. And he'll cry about all the people they left behind, rapid tears as his breath catches repeatedly in his throat, and Dave rubs his back. And Karkat cries himself out, feeling guilty as all hell for the ridiculous amount of times he fucked up, until he can't cry anymore and all he can do is sleep. Dave doesn't leave him the whole time, lying behind him with his arms around Karkat's chest and holding him tightly. It feels like they are beating as one bloodpusher but Karkat is too tired to cry anymore, even about stupid rom-com tropes like that, so he just leans into Dave and rests. 

The pale days aren't common but they're a lot more common than the pitch days. 

Dave is so rarely pitch with him anymore and honestly, Karkat doesn't mind. But the days when they are pitch, they are really pitch. Dave drives him crazy with his stupid remarks and Karkat pulls him down roughly so he can kiss him and Dave bites on his lip hard enough to leave marks. And Karkat growls at him and Dave makes a noise somewhere between a snarl and a whine that would be enough to make any troll within five yards to unsheathe. The pitch days mostly revolve around pailing and teasing each other and often end with pale cuddling sessions. Karkat likes the pitch but he likes the aftercare more. 

9\. That fucker loves to make mixtapes. Karkat cannot talk enough about the relentless amount of mixtapes that Dave makes, considering how few people there are to hear them. He makes one nearly every other day. The ones that Karkat receives are the most romantic pieces of crap that Karkat has ever come across- it's like Dave is trying to give him some kind of heart attack. They all have stupid names and detailed art on the box of the tape that Dave took the time to draw. Karkat is shocked to find out that when he tries, his boyfriend is actually a decent artist. Not amazing but decent enough to make him flush brighter than ever. 

That's the good side of the mixtapes. But the bad side is whenever Dave is making a mixtape for somebody else, Karkat always has to suffer. He'll be watching a movie and minding his own business when Dave moves in front of the TV and starts talking over Will Smith, (regular Will Smith not Troll Will Smith- Dave convinced him to start watching some human movies). And Karkat will have to pause his movie so that he can slip some headphones on and criticise Dave's music so that he knows how to improve it. 

Most of the time, the music is either the kind of dance music that Karkat is sure they used to torture people back on Alternia before culling them or weird indie music that sounds like something Rose would have been into when she was younger. Either way, he feels like he should be paid for suffering through these mixtapes. 

Dave obsesses over these mixtapes, like they're going to change the entire world or something, and spends hours working on them. Some nights, Karkat will be ready to pass out and Dave will still be working obsessively on the box art or on mixing the music on his computer. Karkat has pointed out several times that it would be easier to just mix CDs but Dave says that mixtapes are clearly much cooler than CDs. He normally mumbles this, half-asleep on the floor with his face resting on the coffee table, and Karkat rolls his eyes. Didn't he go through enough of this shit with Sollux? Now, he has to haul Dave to bed too?

Karkat normally says something like "come on, dickwad, don't frazzle your think-pan" and pulls Dave away from his work. Dave always concedes and comes to bed, falling asleep almost instantly, and Karkat flings an arm around him. He's always warm. 

10\. Dave is too good for Karkat. He always denies this vehemently and tries to prove what a dick he is, trying to be funny, but Karkat knows it's true. As much as he criticises Dave, he's pretty much flawless at being a human boyfriend. Sure, they might have their moments where they fight and Dave might spend too much time on music and Karkat might obsess a little too much over his movies and they might both get a little lost sometimes. Neither of them is perfect- Karkat feels like a failure and lacks self-esteem, while Dave is still trying to act "cool" and thinks he's a coward- but they're both learning to live with that. 

When Karkat is miserable, Dave is there to pick him up in an instant with either a stupid joke or just a shoulder to lean against. He listens as Karkat rambles about the thoughts he's scared to share with other people and nods, taking every single word seriously. He understands when Karkat just needs to take a break from life for a while and watch a movie. And he's sat through every single rom-com they can get, mostly without complaint or criticism. 

Dave is romantic and he somehow knows what the right thing is to say- even when the thing he says is stupid. He knows all the best tropes from movies and how to pull them off semi-smoothly in real life; like taking Karkat out into his first snow and kissing him softly on the sidewalk; like sneaking up behind him and hugging him. He's the best at pailing on this entire planet, no matter what Rose might psychoanalyse about him, even though both of them are still figuring some things out. 

In a lot of ways, Dave makes him better. He helps Karkat dwell less on things in the past and focus more on the present and makes things much simpler so that they're easier to think about. He's the only person that rambles as much as Karkat and the only one that can rival him in conversation, meaning that they can talk for hours and hours on end. Some nights, when Karkat can't sleep, all they do is talk. Dave always stays up with him, leaning on his elbow and stifling his yawns so they're less obvious. Dave helps him feel a little more relaxed and carefree about life, teaches him to chill out a little more. 

Dave teaches Karkat to like the things he usually hates about himself. 

And when Karkat says he wishes he was that good at being a boyfriend, Dave always assures him that he's just great at it. Fucking awesome at it. If there was a trophy for being a fucking awesome boyfriend, he'd win it annually. And Karkat kisses him.


End file.
